Shrines and temples

In the earliest times deities were worshipped in awesome places such as groves, caves, or mountaintops. Mycenaean deities shared the king’s palace. Fundamental was the precinct (temenos) allotted to the deity, containing the altar, temple (if any), and other sacral or natural features, such as the sacred olive in the temenos of Pandrosos on the Athenian Acropolis. Naoi (temples—literally “dwellings”—that housed the god’s image) were already known in Homeric times and, like models discovered at Perachora, were wooden and of simple design. Poros and marble replaced wood by the end of the 7th century bc, when ... (100 of 6,287 words)